"This seems like a different country," said Alisa Clifton of Cooper City, making her first visit to The Colonnade, a pedestrian-friendly, upscale shopping center on the south side of Sawgrass Mills mall. "This is almost like Vienna. ... It's new and it's beautiful."

The arrival of the shopping center, with high-rise residences ahead, is a sign that Sunrise is heading in a new direction.

The city has long been home to sprawling residential developments and modest condominium complexes, but two new 26-story luxury condominium towers and several other buildings of 10 stories or more are on the horizon. Each project fits neatly into the city's plan, bringing attractions for new residents and new visitors.

"Nothing happened by accident," said Sunrise City Manager Pat Salerno. "Everything was by design."

Jim Rosewater and Harry Weitzer, of Weitzer Properties, are building the 26-story Tao towers. Rosewater said the prospect of residential and commercial development made the city attractive to his company.

"I asked [Salerno] if he was trying to make a new downtown for Sunrise," said Rosewater. "He said, `No, I want to call it the new downtown for southern Florida.'"

The opportunity in Sunrise offered not only a unique combination of space, accessibility and existing attractions, but also the chance to build the tall buildings necessary for a pedestrian-friendly setting.

"I think we're on the brink of some changes, fundamentally, in how housing gets developed in Broward," Rosewater said. "We saw an opportunity here to do something that hasn't been done before."

The new projects near Sawgrass Mills mall include:

The Tao condominiums, which broke ground in January on two 26-story towers with almost 400 luxury units;

Metropica, a mixed-use development with office buildings at least seven stories high and residential buildings a minimum of eight stories high;

Artesia, a 28-building residential community that broke ground in February 2004 and will include six 13-story buildings;

The Colonnade, a retail center that opened in March with designer stores and gourmet restaurants.

The buildings going up in Sunrise are considerably taller than those allowed in past decades. The taller buildings, with high-end retail developments expected to surround them, reflect the city's intention of becoming a destination for residents from inside and outside Sunrise.

The first intent of the developments, stressed Mayor Steve Feren, was to benefit Sunrise residents. While Sawgrass Mills and the BankAtlantic Center draw people from Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, Feren thought the new developments would draw people not from adjacent counties, but adjacent cities.

"In the general area -- Tamarac and Plantation, Weston and Davie and Lauderhill -- the people in the neighboring cities wouldn't be inconvenienced to come here and take advantage of what we're providing for our residents," Feren said.

The tallest structure in West Broward now is the BankAtlantic Center at 15 stories. As the area runs out of open space, taller buildings are a solution, Rosewater said.

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle agreed, noting that similar economics were affecting growth in his downtown.

"It's all a function of the cost per square foot of land," said Naugle. "When the cost hits a certain price, that's when you go vertical."

Nothing is going as vertical as the Tao project, which will include a pool along a lake with a beach and a children's playground. Feren said space was available for those amenities only because of the city's willingness to accept the towers' height.

Sunrise has made few concessions. The city will grant some tax abatements for the office buildings in the Metropica development, allowing the developer to recover as much as $15.8 million over 15 years, records show. The residential projects will receive no incentives, Feren said.

Sunrise officials are sitting pretty. With the mall and the BankAtlantic Center, the property is extremely valuable, so developers need to invest a lot of money and must offer a product -- residential or commercial -- that can bring them a profit. Thus, the city is virtually guaranteed fresh, lucrative new buildings.

Longtime Sunrise resident Shirley Sumner called the plans exciting. Ed Archer, a resident of the Sawgrass Estates community just east of the Artesia and Tao sites, predicted the developments would enhance home values in his neighborhood.

"The mall is the second-biggest attraction in the state, they just opened the new Colonnade shops, and there are luxury condos coming," said Sunrise Realtor Michael Ugarte. "This will cater to the new people coming in and when you have high-end values, it will bring everything up in the long term."

Sawgrass Estates residents Jeffrey and Paula Walley, however, had mixed feelings. Property values might climb, but the new buildings could block sunsets and the new residents could clog the streets, they said.